Unstable Orients: Steam, Sovereignty, and Waterscapes in El Filibusterismo

In José Rizal’s El Filibusterismo (1891), the Pasig River and Laguna de Bay serve as contested terrains where colonial modernity is tested against native ecological relations. Reading these waterscapes alongside Rizal’s pan-European and German scholarly formation, this essay introduces the framework of "unstable Orients"—an epistemic condition in which Orientalist and scientific categories become unsettled and available for anticolonial reinterpretation. By examining the steamship Tabo alongside the misremembered legend and death of Elías, the paper demonstrates how Rizal transforms imperial infrastructure and colonial knowledge into a reservoir of native futurity.